this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Unpopular Opinion

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Decentralized social media is better, but it won't solve the issues social media causes. (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

As anyone who remembers the 90s/00s can remember, the internet was supposed to liberate us. Free access to information meant everyone would be educated and informed, and able to freely communicate and organize.

That's not what happened. Corporations turned it into a tool of oppression. Technology has never and will never save us from capitalism on its own. Since the early 1900s we've been capable of providing food, housing, and medical care to everyone but we don't. Technology cannot change that.

Social media is a particularly vile tool. It allows corporations to totally shape the reality of people who use it. To the point where people are so divided it's all but impossible to oppose the government.

Decentralized social media might be better, at least for now. But it's still removing the human element from our lives. Instead of talking to each other we create little echo chambers for ourselves. The Fediverse will not fix that.

The only real solution is to reject social media entirely. Which was happening, but now I fear decentralized social media is pulling people back in.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The major benefit of distributed social media comes from one thing: no ads.

It's the ad-supported business model that creates terrible incentives:

  • to spy on the user in order to better guess what they might pay for
  • to concoct algorithms that boost the user's engagement using rage, anxiety, controversy

Virtual socializing does carry drawbacks, as you say. Particularly the problem of group bias reinforcement, i.e. echo chambers and bubbles. But the really bad externalities of modern corporate social media can be traced to one thing IMO: advertising.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Erm, but, uh... There's nothing about decentralization that makes it inherently ad free. We currently have an ad-free network of sites, but we also used to have an ad-free web.

Decentralization does not solve this. The only reason there's no ads here is that they haven't arrived yet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not really. It's mainly because the site belong to idealists and hosting is cheap because it's text.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not sure if this is what the previous user was getting at, but I think we should put it a different way: it's not about whether or not the admins of a given site/instance refuse to host ads, but if they can meaningfully prevent ads from manifesting on their platform.

If there is money to extract from people, the advertisers will eventually arrive, invited or not.

On Reddit, for instance, I'd be willing to guess that the majority of ads were not formal ads, but rather astroturfed content from informal advertisers.

The only reason Lemmy is not seeing that (at least not so overtly) is because it's still small and obscure. But security through obscurity is not really a winning strategy in the long run.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That's fair but I think you're both worrying a bit too much. Astroturfing is a problem, sure, but it's a first-world problem compared to spyware-driven engagement-maximization algorithms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Thankfully, there aren't any ads here. Just the thought of it stresses me out, and when I get stressed out, I reach for a Morley cigarette to keep my cool. The toasted tobacco and asbestos filter make for a smoother smoke, which soothes the throat. 9 out of 10 anti-ad, Fediverse, activists choose Morleys to keep up their pep and vigor in the fight against advertisement.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's nothing stopping ads from being added. Decentralized social media will be enshittified as much as any other technology thanks to the boundless greed of capitalists.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Much harder to pull off algorithmic ad tech when it's genuinely decentralized. And if it happens here I'll be gone and I won't the only one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Free access to information meant everyone would be educated and informed, and able to freely communicate and organize.

Could be, not would be. They still can be. But they won't be.

Corporations turned it into a tool of oppression.

No the people turned it into a tool of distraction from the pain of life using the tools corporations were happy to provide.

Technology has never and will never save us from capitalism on its own.

Capitalism isn't the reason that free access to information hasn't educated and informed everyone. Exactly the same indifference to education and organisation would exist in the absence of capitalism. The limitation isn't capitalism, the limitation is the suffering that life necessarily implies. In the face of relentless suffering, most people are not motivated to learn beyond what's necessary to survive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

It's a dopamine versus serotonin issue. People think they want to be happy, but that longing is more for purpose. Eating ice cream can make you happy, but learning to cook your own meals makes you a more component being able to provide for yourself and those around you.

Most modern luxuries are basically Skinner boxes at this point monetized in some way to keep us staring at it or consuming it.

We doom scroll at the expense of relationship building.

We door dash instead of have community gardens.

Instant gratification isn't always and intrinsically bad, but the more the default it becomes, the less patient and competent people become.

Then you pile on decades of American exceptionalism and actively encouraging selfishness at the expense of a functioning society and the present state of things is hardly surprising.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The only real solution is to reject social media entirely.

...you say on social media.

I understand why, but you've got to admit it's ironic

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I know it is. But that's because social media has destroyed places where people used to get together in person and discuss these things.